


Slightly Worse for Wear

by plumandfinch



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: steggyweek2k16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 04:42:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7029061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumandfinch/pseuds/plumandfinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all becomes rather complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slightly Worse for Wear

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 2 of Steggyweek2k16: AU/Crossover

It all becomes rather complicated. Hydra is decimated but the war drags on. As desperately as she wants to get on a plane and fly to him, there are such things as orders and although she’s still assigned to Project Rebirth, she’s also taken her place with the Commandos and they have a war to win. 

 

So it is he, not she, waiting in the crowd on the docks for a ship to pull in. 

 

It had taken them a week to find the wreckage. Howard commandeers two merchant ships in addition to his own and she is halfway through Norway when she gets Howard’s telegram. 

 

OBJECT RETRIEVED. ONLY SLIGHTLY WORSE FOR WEAR. RETURN TO RENDEZVOUS POINT AT CLOSE OF MISSION. 

H

 

The Commandos turn back to Germany and it takes them six weeks before they find themselves finally on the troop transport ship home. Howard has sent intermittent updates which sometimes find their way to her. She’s watching the progress of their slow approach to the dock, turning the question of what they’ll find over in her mind again, when Dugan appears and claps her on the back. 

 

“Three days R an’ R, Carter, whaddaya think you’ll get up to?” 

 

“First order of business is to scrub the several inches of muck off. I would give my eyeteeth for a hot bath.” 

 

A voice crackles over the ship’s loudspeaker proffering disembarking instructions so she never quite hears his response. Having no wounded members of their party, they are one of the last groups to step off giving Dugan time to chew through three cigars and Morita time to pace a groove into the ship’s floor. Even Falsworth absentmindedly taps his pencil against the metal bench he is currently perched on with such vigor that Peggy pops it out of his hand and tosses it overboard. The distinct combination of exhaustion and anticipation has set everyone’s nerves on edge and by the time they reach the top of the gangplank, Peggy’s sure that her heart is going to pound out of her chest. She’s at the back of the queue so when she hears Jones shout, there’s a moment of confusion. It isn’t until Dugan tugs on her arm, “Carter! Cap’s here!” that she understands what is happening. She involuntarily takes a step back but Dugan pulls her forward again and mutters “He won’t mind the muck, trust me” so that only she can hear. 

 

When the crowd clears, she freezes while the rest of the Commandos stream off the end of the gangplank and commence with whooping, hand-shaking, and hearty claps on the back. Jones shifts and that’s when she sees him, looking just as he did the last time she clapped eyes on him. She steels herself for something akin to a professional handshake when he finally looks up and catches her eye. She takes three steps forward and he is there, inexplicably, in her arms.

 

“Steve,” she breathes.

 

“You have any grenades or knives or anything?” he murmurs into her shoulder. At the shake of her head, he tightens his arms around her and swings her off her feet. There’s noise in the distance but all she can really hear is her own shaky voice. 

 

“Don’t you ever leave me again.” 

 

“I won’t.”

 

\--

 

There will always be an echo of the ice for them. They are married seven years when he is knocked so hard on the back of the head he’s out for a day and a half and when he comes to, she’s perched uncomfortably on the edge of his bed.

 

“Pegs,” he says rustily at which point she bursts promptly into tears.  “Hey, hey.”

 

He grimaces his way into sitting so that he can take her face in his hands. “Everything’s fine. It’s fine.” 

 

“I wasn’t there. When you woke up after the crash. I wasn’t there.” 

 

“Honey, that was so long ago.”

 

He is rewarded with a watery smile, “I know! I was just reminded and I wanted to tell you when you woke up, how sorry I was not to be there.” she rifles through her purse for a handkerchief and dabs at her eyes.  “Bloody hormones.” 

 

He stiffly leans forward and kisses her cheek. “Peg, everything’s fine. I’m here, I’m fine - you’re here, the baby’s fine.”

 

He lays his hand over hers, resting on the not-insignificant swell of her stomach. He is rewarded with a nod.

 

“Don’t leave us.” 

 

“Never.”


End file.
